Annie Dear: The trouble I always bring with me

If you have been following this scribe over the last 13 years - good Lord has it been that long – you will recall that I have a particular body part or two of which I am not fond.

I refer to my feet – or in Cockney slang – plates of meat which they indeed are.

Living a life of carefree and funnel web spider eschewing abandon in my homeland, I grew up like most Australians, adoring bare feet, which is all very well and good until you find you cannot squish your size 10-EEEs into a pair of Jimmy Choos for love nor money. Not that I have gone near a fashion pair of clodhoppers for many a year, but you catch my drift.

So romping through the sand dunes and grasses naturally splayed my feet to mammoth proportions to the point that I have had to endure two surgeries in my autumnal years.

So imagine my chagrin the other day when I flung on a pair of flip flops – or thongs as we call them – to belt up to Costco as Sir, who has I am sad to say, caught a Man Flu – i.e. a common cold – was in dire need of that establishment’s extraordinarily fabulous chicken soup.

As I entered the store I thought my left big toe was a tad itchy, so I galloped around the store using the floss twixt big toe and the next happily scratching.

Well apparently that wasn’t such a brilliant idea.

As I always do, I immediately de-shod myself on returning home, only to realize that the itch was becoming somewhat serious.

My big toe – or Great Toe as the medical profession would have it (I mean it’s a nice enough toe, but a Great one? I doubt it) – now felt like an overstuffed incredibly itchy sausage just ready to burst.

Wanting to resort to a nice sharp grapefruit knife to relieve my discomfort, I realized that course of action would likely result in my needing a third foot surgery, an event I can well live without, and so I have resorted to a cleverly manipulated ice pack into which my Fabulous Toe has been thrust ever since.

It does relieve the itch, I will admit, but I’m not at all sure frostbite is the way I would prefer to go (it, of course will ultimately also require surgery).

I have no idea when or what munched me, as the offending being naturally chomped and then easily escaped the open air confines of a flip flop. But if I find it was a spider there will be serious trouble which will ensue.